If we have only daughters and no sons to perform our last rites after death, what will be our destination?

If we have daughters and don’t have a son to do the last rites after we depart, what happens? In general, in the broad Vedic tradition, there is the path of karma kanda. Now, we consider karma kanda primarily to be rituals for material gain, but karma kanda has also been broadly the path of rituals. And then there is, in our understanding, the path of bhakti.

In the history of the tradition, how much the path of bhakti adopts the rituals of the broad Vedic tradition. Now, the Vedic tradition was generally a Vedic tradition of karma kanda, although not only karma kanda. So, that has been a matter of not necessarily a complete standard all the time.

Generally, the bhakti tradition emerged as an internal reform against the excessive ritualism and the caste hierarchy and other kind of over-centralization of power by the brahmanas in the Vedic tradition. But over a period of time, as the bhakti tradition itself became popular, became influential, then it also started adopting certain rituals. So, Gopal Bhatta Goswami, for example, in our tradition, has written a certain Vaishnav version of many of the Smartha rituals.

Now, in the bhakti tradition, the remembrance of Krishna is what is considered a primary. And there are some acharyas, there is one acharya in the Sri Vaishnav tradition who deliberately decided to leave his life outside a dham. He said he wanted to demonstrate that the bhakti is self-independent and you don’t need to depart from your body in a dham because by bhakti you can be delivered wherever you are.

Similarly, in the Gita, Krishna talks about, in the 8th chapter, about the timings of departure. If you depart at this time, and if you depart at another time, one is you will go to Brahman, go to spiritual level of reality, other is you will go to Chandra and come back. But then he says, Don’t worry about this.

Focus on remembering me and you will get the ultimate destination. So, now in our current state, in our moment, depending on the previous culture and the previous Shraddha of devotees, there is a wide range over whether the rituals of the Vedic tradition are adopted and to what degree they are adopted by devotees. So, that’s with respect to the specifics of the rituals.

Now, my understanding is that ultimately the destination of a soul is determined not so much by who does what after that soul has departed. Primarily, each soul is an individual. Each soul has to take individual responsibility for their spiritual growth and even their karmic trajectory also.

So, primarily, it’s our own consciousness at the time of our departure that will determine our destination. Now, secondarily, the rituals that are to be performed, they are meant for multiple purposes. One is, of course, if the punya of that soul is adequate, then the punya that is done by the relatives, that helps the soul to get a better destination.

The other is that through those rituals, those who are survivors also get a sense of service and closure. So, it is also a means for healing for them that the person who has departed, we did something for that person after they have departed. So, now, whether women can perform certain rituals, if you see, this is a very volatile and disputed subject within the Indian tradition.

Some people say that women’s role was much, much more inclusive in the original Upanishadic and Vedic texts, but it became much more restricted during the Islamic times. Some people say that it is Manu Samhita which restricted the roles. But my point is that there are some traditions which, very few traditions, which actually now allow women also to perform certain rituals like in the last rites.

Most do not. But either way, from the bhakti perspective, who gets to perform the last rites is not that important. Most important thing is that we try to cultivate Krishna Consciousness and if we feel that it is important, then we can assign someone also.

Somebody who is like a nephew or somebody within the community with whom we have a relationship like a son. That person can be told to do rituals. Sometimes the son-in-law also does rituals like that.

So the point is that Krishna is Bhavagrahi and our destination does not depend exactly on who performs what rituals. It depends on our consciousness primarily.